Circuit boards are widely used in the Electrical and Electronics industry in the manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment. Such circuit boards are prepared with printed wiring used to interconnect electrical components such as dual-in-line devices that form elements of the electrical and electronic equipment. Components may be inserted into plated-through holes of the circuit boards and affixed thereto to form connections with the printed wiring to create a composite circuit used in the operation of the electrical and electronic equipment. In another variation, the components may be plugged into a socket located on the circuit board and affixed to the circuit board printed-wiring.
Component insertion machines are used in the manufacture of the circuit boards to automatically insert components stored in component magazines into the circuit boards. Typical component insertion machines usually have a number of component magazines loaded thereon from which stored components are selected and installed into a circuit board in accordance with programmed instructions controlling the operation of the component insertion machine. In the operation of a component insertion machine, the operator or the component insertion machine itself, determines that one of the component magazines is empty and stops the operation so tha the operator may remove the empty component magazine and replace it with another. The component magazines are open at both ends to facilitate the loading of the components into the component magazines and to enable ones of the loaded components to be selected by and loaded into the component insertion machine. An operator is required to hold a finger over an open end while the component magazine is being loaded into the component insertion machine to prevent components from falling out of the component magazines and into the machinery. A problem arises in that it requires a period of time for the operator to locate the replacement component magazine and to carefully maintain a thumb over an open end of the component magazine during the loading of the replacement component magazine into the component insertion machine. During this period of time the component insertion machine is inoperative. Accordingly, a need arises for a component insertion machine that requires less time to load component magazines.